Perspectives in

Psychology
1.

Behaviorism:

2.

Psychodynamic:

focus on how people behave, its

concerned with how the environmental factors affect
observable behavior, and it rejects that people have a free
will.
was first mentioned by
Freud, tells us that our behavior is determined by the
unconscious mind and childhood experiences.

Three methods to access the unconscious mind, free

association,
Dream analysis
Slips of the tongue

Criticism:

they view humans as controlled by environment and

rejects that humans have a free will and cant make their own
choices and rejects the idea that humans are born blank slate,
and focus extremely on the observable behavior.

3.

Humanistic:

individuals are unique, and they

can reach their full potential but they have to fulfill their
needs according to Maslows hierarchy (achieving selfactualization)

Criticism:

the critics believe that the concepts of the

humanistic perspective are vague and that the human feelings
are difficult to objectify, and that every human feelings differ from
one individual to another, according to that the conclusions drawn
from those experiences are difficult to verify.

4.

Neuroscience:

its studying the human

condition and looks inside the body, examining the brain and

the physical health and try to understand how the body

influence the behavior.

Criticism:

other perspectives doesnt believe that its only the

genes and body are the ones to determine ones behavior.

5.

Sociocultural:

seeks to understand human

behavior and personality development by examining the
rules of the social groups in which the individual belongs to.

Criticism:

sociocultural perspective ignores the development

stages and it doesnt explain how personality changes and
develops over time.

6.

Cognitive psychology:

individuals behave
according to their thoughts, psychologists study the mental
act or process by which knowledge is acquired.

Criticism:

psychologists create an artificial environment to

examine the thoughts which means that the response can change
by the change of the environment.